What expectations do you have of your
chiropractic care of McHenry
back pain? That is a pivotal question. Research
is reporting that that questions of expectations plays
a role in back pain treatment outcome be the
treatment surgical or conservative. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic aspires
to hear your expectations of our McHenry back
pain treatment and share the outcomes of our treatment
documented in practice and in
research.
INFLUENTIAL EXPECTATIONS FOR BACK SURGERY OUTCOMES
A new research project studied
patient and surgeon expectations of back surgery. Patients expected complete
relief and improvement of their back pain after lumbar spine surgery. Surgeons
expected improvement that ranged from a little to a lot depending
on the patient and his/her specific condition. Can you guess whose expectations were met? The surgeons’
expectations. Two years after the back surgery, the patient-reported outcomes met the surgeon’s expectations.
The researchers stressed that effective communication about expectations
may well further better outcomes. (1) That’s
why OrthoIllinois Chiropractic devotes time to each McHenry
back pain patient at the beginning of care, ensuring
that the source of pain and its treatment plan are well-described.
If not, tell us!
AN ACCEPTABLE SYMPTOM STATE
If a patient does not get
the relief he/she wanted from back surgery,
what is an “acceptable symptom state” for that back pain patient? What can he/she live with? For patients with chronic non-specific low back pain (with or
without active discopathy), 54% reported having an acceptable symptom
state at 1 month of care. Specifically, patient-reported acceptable symptoms involved
these: 47.5 for lumbar pain, 30.5 for radicular pain, 39.3 for
disability, 10.0 for anxiety, and 6.7 for depression. (2) OrthoIllinois Chiropractic realizes no pain is the preferred state and is prepared to discuss
with our McHenry chiropractic patients their options and potential
outcomes.
DECIDING ON TREATMENT OPTIONS
Deciding
whether to have back surgery is a big decision. Evidence-based medicine sees that the patient at the center of care. What is
the patient perspective of this care? How is the patient perspective taken
into consideration in treatment planning and decision making
among available options? A recent paper pointed
out that the patient’s social, psychological, and other non-clinical
characteristics must be considered in planning care. (3)
One factor in the back-surgery decision that reportedly influences
the decision and the outcome expectation is opioid use. Lower dose and shorter-time-taking
opioid use patients expected more complete improvement opposed to non-users. They also had higher
expectations of positive outcome than higher-dose opioid patients. (4) For a
lot of patients, the prospect of work is goal of back pain treatment which is positive
according to a new report on how back pain patient recovery
expectations affect clinical outcomes. A review of
60 studies found that a patient’s recovery expectations are
probably strongly associated with future work participation. (5) OrthoIllinois Chiropractic offers
effective, nonsurgical treatment of back pain to meet patient expectations once the research on outcomes for other back pain
sufferers is described and understood. McHenry chiropractic care keeps the back pain patient at its center.
CONTACT OrthoIllinois Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST
with Dr. Anthony Galante on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson as he described how Cox®
Technic System of Spinal Pain Management and chiropractic treatment assisted
in the management of back pain for a patient who was adamant about not wanting back surgery.
Set your next McHenry
chiropractic visit soon. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic invites you to ponder and answer the question of your
expectations for our treatment so that we can both be happy
with the outcome!